The present invention relates to a wire holder for holding a wire, and more particularly, to a wire holder for holding a wire which, in conjunction with a conduction path of a circuit board, forms an electric circuit, and a wire holder assembly including a plurality of wire holders of this type and adapted for the attachment of the wire holders to the circuit board by means of an automatic loader.
Circuit boards such as printed boards are frequently used in the construction of electric circuits of various electric apparatuses. In this case, conductor patterns for use as conduction paths which constitute the electric circuits are first formed on the printed boards, and various electric circuit components are then mounted on the printed boards.
In an electric apparatus using one such printed board, all the electric circuits on the printed board side may not be able to be formed from the conductor patterns of the printed board only, or it may be improper, in consideration of the circuit configuration, to form all the electric circuits from the conductor patterns, on account of the complexity of the electric circuits and other reasons.
Generally, in this case, required parts such as the conductor patterns are connected to one another by means of a wire, e.g., a vinyl-coated wire. If the wire touches circuit components which are mounted on the printed board, however, an external force acts on the circuit components, so that attachment of the components on the printed board may be loosened, or the conductor patterns may be separated at their junctions with the circuit components, thus possibly resulting in electrical connection failure. Moreover, the wire must be kept away from a high-tension power source. Accordingly, the wire should be held in position on the printed board by means of a wire holder.
A conventional wire holder is formed of a vinyl-coated wire or the like, and its proximal end portion is manually embedded in position in the printed board, to be fixed thereto. The holding of the wire by means of the holder wire can be achieved by manually winding the distal end portion or intermediate portion of the holder wire around the wire.
As described above, the wire holding by means of the conventional wire holder formed of the vinyl-coated wire requires the manual operation, thus entailing high cost. During this manual operation, moreover, an operator sometimes may erroneously apply a force to the wire or bring the wire into contact with the circuit components previously mounted on the printed board. In this case, separation of each conductor pattern on the printed board at its junction with the wire and some other trouble will be caused.